Beauty, Madness, Red Plague

Yeah, so…apparently I’m dating. This surprises everyone, me included, but I guess when he carries all your stuff through Ikea and brings you flowers each time he sees you, that’s really guy-code for “I like you.” (Who knew?) Plus, my inner goddess approves of all the adoration. It’s nice to be flattered.

In other news, it’s been Officially Announced, so I suppose I can finally say something about it here: Razorbill will be bringing out my next YA series, Tales of Beauty & Madness, soonish. I’ve been fascinated with fairytales and Brothers Grimm for a long time, and the first Tale, Heartless, is something that’s been boiling in the back of my head for a while. I’m working on the second book now–the series is also partly my homage to Kieslowski’s Three Colors, which just about exploded my tiny little brain when I saw it the first time. Further bulletins as events warrant–I will tell you, though, that my working title for the first Tale was Snow White and the Seven Mob Bosses. Heh.

I’m also working on the second Bannon & Clare, The Red Plague Affair. I broke 25K yesterday, and the book is finally starting to hang together as a whole, though it hasn’t made that clicking sound and started pulling itself forward under its own steam (ha ha) just yet. There has been a monkey, a broken neck, and the death of a character so far, though. So the initial signs are good.

I’m not sure about the flowers, but IKEA is a dead giveaway for “I like you”. Imagine a guy going to IKEA… 😉
Cool, I’m going to bug people at LYX about translations of your latest books at the book fair this weekend! Maybe it’ll get them moving to publish them earlier…

Hello from Eastern PA. I discovered Jill Kismet and this blog in February. I have been following your updates, and enjoying it all. Congratulations on the publishing news, I’ll be especially looking forward to the Tales of Beauty and Madness. And in response to an earlier post/question of yours, yes, I would be interested in a book compiling your posts about writing and creativity, very very much.

Well, I had to print off the 2nd diagram, and then add a list of inspirational writing quotes underneath, since a half page just looks sad without words. And just to toss out a pair of my favorite writing quotes, as a reminder,

“Every writer I know has trouble writing.” -Joseph Heller
and
“You fail only if you stop writing.” – Ray Bradbury.

Wow. I can’t even get my husband to carry anything for me in Ikea! Mostly, he just follows me with a “can we get out of here yet” face.Or maybe its a “do we honestly need that” face. Dunno. Don’t care. Heh.